Watching You
by Aki-Chan04
Summary: Epilogue: Now that things have been resolved... What's left for Alison and Duo?
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: Even after all this, I don't own the Gundam boys. Just a pretty calendar and some action figures. ;) 

AN: Oh, how exciting, ne? Another one. I just can't stop. Sad, isn't it? Hope you like it, please let me know, and thanks for reading! 

Also, this is the 4th story in this Lost Girl series-thing, so if you're confused or something you might want to try reading the other ones first. I think it might help. ;)

Watching You

Part 1

"We need help! *Now*!" 

Heero's voice rang out through the hangar as the bay doors thudded shut on the outside world, shutting out the stars and leaving me staring at the tattered shells of Wing, Shenlong, and Heavyarms. Heavyarms was obviously out of bullets, and had taken hits to the right side. There were burn marks scarring the paint – there were scorch marks on all three suits. Wing had taken a hit to the left aft booster, and Shenlong was in shambles. One arm looked completely inoperable, the other a mangled mess of melted plating and wire. The area around the cockpit was charred… I automatically began mentally ticking off the parts I would need, the time it would take to complete the repairs – 

No time for that – my eyes fell from the battle-ravaged suits to the figure making his way towards me, his brown hair mussed with sweat and his face dirty, but his blue eyes still burning brightly. The figure that was dragging another figure with it, half-carrying the unconscious boy slumped against his side as if he were dead – 

It was Wufei. 

I shot over to Heero, sliding under Wufei's other shoulder, wrapping his other arm around my neck and helping Heero drag him closer towards the center of the bay. 

I could feel blood soaking into my clothes. 

I stole a glance down at his face: his cheek was marred with a deep gash, his hair had come loose and hung matted around his pale face. 

Something in my stomach dropped. 

We approached my workspace, just in front of the ladder that led up to the stairs that would take us to the house – 

I stopped. Heero noticed it and stopped an instant later, his eyes swiveling around to meet mine. 

"What is it?" he asked shortly. His voice had the cover of calm, but beneath that it was tight and worried. 

"We can't take him upstairs," I said. "It would only do more damage. We'll have to make him a bed down here. The less we move him, the better." I was amazed at how calm, how commanding my voice sounded, when my insides were shaking enough to topple me over. 

A beat. 

"You're right," Heero said curtly, and with him I bent down to lay the unconscious Chinese pilot on the floor. 

I heard noise above us – I looked up to see Quatre and Duo scrambling down the ladder, jumping off the last few rungs to thud onto the floor, both looking frantic and worried. 

"What happened?" Quatre asked, gasping for breath, his eyes flickering from Heero to the boy on the floor. 

"We were ambushed," came the curt reply. There was disgust beneath that. "He took the worst of it," he said, nodding to Wufei, "but Trowa took more hits than I did. We need to get him out of Heavyarms." 

And he turned and began walking swiftly back towards the red suit, intent on his mission to extract the banged pilot from its cockpit. 

"I'll help!" Duo stole a last glance at Wufei before bounding after the green tank top. 

"We need to call Sally," Quatre said, his voice just as tight as Heero's, and his worry was nearly tangible. 

It was only making my worry worse. 

I nodded. "Yeah. But first we need to take care of this before he goes into shock." 

Quatre blinked as I fell to my knees beside Wufei; I didn't like how the very edges of the floor beneath his body were beginning to turn a rusty red… 

Gingerly I lifted his shirt, pulling the blood-soaked garment off his limp body… 

His midsection was mottled with bruises – two long contusions ran down his torso where his suit restraints had held him in place. I couldn't see any major cuts here – it had to be on his back.

"God…" I whispered. I ran my hands down his chest, trying to ignore the heat pooling in my face, knowing that I was only trying to check his ribcage – 

"He's got broken ribs," I grimaced, feeling the cracked bones beneath my hands. "We can't move him – it might make them worse, or puncture a lung… And he's bleeding from somewhere, it must be his back – "

"I'll get sheets and the med kits," Quatre said before scrambling back up the ladder. I could hear his footsteps pounding up the stairs as he ran to get the supplies. 

I had to check his back. But I didn't want to move him. _Fat lot of good keeping his ribs in place will do if he bleeds to death!_ I reprimanded myself, and as carefully as I could I lifted him onto his side. 

There was a huge cut down his back, running from nearly his shoulder blades to his midsection. I could feel my eyes widen with shock – what the hell had given him *that*?! Miraculously it wasn't bleeding much anymore, but I didn't want to take any chances. I glanced around for something… Nothing. I pulled off my sweatshirt, left in my tank top now, and pressed it against his back, laying him down once more and piling the hood beneath his head. Hopefully it would do to slow the bleeding until Quatre came back with proper bandages. 

Momentarily satisfied, I moved to Wufei's arms and face, confirming that his arms were fine except for the bruises and a few cuts that were already beginning to scab over. But those would need to be cleaned. 

I turned to the cut on his cheek – the blood had slowed but not stopped; there was nothing to cover it with… Yes there was. The arm of my sweatshirt was sticking out from beneath his body; I pulled it up to his face and pressed the sleeve against his cheek to slow the bleeding there. As I held the cloth there, I inspected the rest of his face and his head. There was a nasty bruise forming on one temple, and a few more cuts, but nothing else that looked very serious. 

Thank God. 

I looked up as I heard shuffling – Heero and Duo were bringing Trowa. The tall pilot was conscious but he didn't look very coherent; the light caught his eyes and I could see they were clouded, confused. 

I felt a chill run through me, never having expected to see an expression like that in Trowa's eyes. 

"Set him down here," I commanded, pointing with my free hand to the floor beside me; the two boys complied and Trowa allowed himself to be lowered to the floor by his comrades. He blinked at me as I made a quick visual inspection: he didn't look as bad, his temple was cut, he had another small cut near the hairline, but there wasn't much blood and he was obviously still conscious. I couldn't tell the condition of his arms or torso with those long sleeves, however. 

"Take off your shirt," I commanded, now aware of how tight my own voice had become. 

He blinked at me, but a second later Heero had reached over and peeled the turtleneck off the tall boy, exposing his bruised chest and arms.

I nodded. "Is anything broken?" I asked, directing my voice towards Heero as I glanced back down at Wufei's cheek, checking to see if the bleeding had stopped yet. It had ebbed to a slow, oozing flow and I gently peeled my bloodstained sweatshirt away to let it close up. 

"No," came Heero's reply. 

"Hey, since when are you two doctors?" Duo's voice rang out loudly, his anger and fear translating into annoyance as he crouched before Trowa, glancing at me. 

"We're not," I replied. "But we're doing the best we can. We can use common sense, you know – " 

"Here!" 

I hadn't even heard Quatre return; he was standing on the platform above us, arms piled high with blankets and medical kits. Duo pushed himself off the ground, going over to catch the items and Quatre tossed them down to him. 

"Lay the blankets down over here," I commanded, pointing to a spot just beside where Wufei lay now. I didn't want to have to move him far. Duo, amazingly, complied without a word as Quatre climbed down the ladder with the last of the medical supplies. I grabbed for the bandages, already starting to unroll them as I glanced back up at Quatre. 

"We need hot water." 

"Right." 

And he was gone again, running for the water tanks that lay just around the corner. While he was gone I began cutting the gauze into strips long enough to cover the wound on Wufei's back. Although there were noises all around – Duo laying the bedding, running water in the background, the scissors in my hands cutting the bandages – my world seemed entirely silent. It was eerie, but I didn't have time to think about it, and concentrated on cutting the gauze as evenly as I could. 

"Here." 

I looked up, again not even aware that Quatre had returned. He set the steaming bucket down beside me and fell to his knees. "How can I help?"

I pointed to Wufei, setting down the bandages and picking up a sponge from one of the med kits. "Help me turn him on his side. I need to clean off his back." 

Quatre complied, remaining silent but his eyes showed clearly the worry that he wasn't voicing. I swiftly washed Wufei's back, avoiding the actual cut but removing the dried blood from around it as best I could. Once I'd finished, I threw the sponge in the bucket and laid the gauze across the gash, taping it firmly in place. When I was done, Quatre slowly lowered the boy back down as I dunked my hands in the water, washing the blood away. 

"Okay," I sighed, looking back to Wufei, then turning to Quatre. "Clean those cuts off and then we'll tape his ribs." 

Quatre nodded and set to work. 

I looked up at Heero and Trowa. 

Heero himself was not unharmed – he was covered with sweat that mingled with blood from the few cuts he had on his arms and face, but he looked to be the least injured of the three. And, obviously, he was *Heero Yuy*, it wasn't as if he would've said anything… 

"Heero," I said firmly, leaving no room for argument – or trying not to, anyway, "are you all right?"

He looked at me, his clear blue eyes emotionless once more, the cover pulled back down so soon already. "I'm fine." 

"All right, then help me bandage Trowa." 

The tall pilot, still mute, merely blinked at me as I washed the cuts on his face before Heero bandaged them with a curt, almost professional air. 

"Hey, what'cha need me to do?" Duo had finished, and was leaning down, hands on his thighs, peering down at me as his braid swung down, brushing the ground.

"Call Sally," I commanded, pointing to the laptop on my workbench.

"Hai!" he quipped, and bounded over to my workspace, tapping the computer on.

I turned my attention back to the brown-haired boy before me. He still hadn't said a word, and his eyes were still clouded. That bothered me. 

"Trowa, can you hear me?" I asked softy, peering into his emerald eyes, searching for a hint of cognizance. 

He blinked, then nodded slowly. 

I sighed as the relief washed over me. Thank God. "Good," I smiled. "You probably just have a concussion; I'm going to have Heero take you upstairs to bed, all right?" I asked, glancing up at Heero. He made no indication that he wouldn't comply. 

Trowa nodded again.

"All right." I looked up at Heero. "And you, take a shower and get back down here. I'm still going to check you over."  
He stared at me for a second, eyes still emotionless, and then looked away. "Fine." 

He stood, supporting Trowa as he did so, and helped the taller pilot up the ladder, leading him up the stairs to the house above. 

I sighed, blinking a few times before turning back to Quatre. He had finished cleaning Wufei's arms and face, and was beginning to wrap gauze around the worst cuts on the boy's slender arms. I scooted back over to check the pale cheek; the bleeding had completely stopped, and I grabbed another piece of gauze, pressing it gently to the cut and taping it in place. 

"We still need to bandage his ribs," I said softly, looking to Quatre. He looked up at me, and this time there was something in those green eyes that I couldn't read. 

"Oi! I'm leaving!" Duo came bounding out of my workstation, hopping from one foot to the other as he glanced down at us. "Sally says she can come but she has no way to get here. Their base was hit last week and they're still short on transportation." 

A real doctor. Wufei, if not Trowa, needed one. I was doing the best I could but – 

But I was only bandaging. That wasn't going to be enough. 

"Okay. How long?" I asked. 

He grimaced. "Ten hours. Five there and five back." 

"*Ten*?" Quatre repeated in surprise, before I could.

Duo nodded. "Hai." 

"Fine," I said, "Go then, and hurry." 

He snapped a quick salute and ran for one of the smaller carries. 

One more thing. "Be careful!" I called after him; he stopped for an instant and tossed a look back at me. 

"Always," he said, winking and turning, hopping into the cockpit. Within two minutes, he was gone, the bay doors sliding shut on the night once more.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Nope, don't own Gundam or anything cool like that. Just using it for my own devices. g

Watching You

Part 2

I turned back to Quatre, who had begun pulling tape from the roll. Right. We needed to finish bandaging Wufei's ribs so they would at least stay in place until a real doctor came. 

"We need to sit him up," I said, and Quatre handed me the tape before gingerly sliding his hands beneath the unconscious boy, lifting him carefully into a sitting position and balancing the limp body on his shoulder as I finished with the tape. 

I took the first long strip and wound it around Wufei's body, maneuvering between his limp arms and Quatre behind him. 

"You look a little relieved," Quatre said softly; all the same I was startled and I looked up at him, his green eyes staring right into mine. 

"I… do?" I asked, turning back to my work so that I wouldn't have to look at him. For some reason… I just couldn't look at him right now. I didn't know why. 

"Yes," he replied. "I know you're doing your best – you're not going to hurt him, if that's what you're worried about. You're doing fine." 

I appreciated his comfort and support – I really did. But it made me feel so… strange… 

"I'll just be glad when there's a real doctor here," I said shortly, pulling another piece of tape up and wrapping that one around the next set of ribs. Wufei's skin was pale, and the bruises stood out all-too-obviously on the creamy skin. I tried to ignore them. 

"You're doing the right thing," Quatre said; I looked up at him again, surprised. How had he known –?

He smiled. "I'm sorry, but I know you were –" 

"You always know what I'm thinking," I put in softly. 

"I guess. Are you all right?" 

"I'm fine."

The lameness of my assertion was obvious; Quatre, however, did not push it. 

I finished taping Wufei's ribs and nodded to Quatre; he gently lowered the boy back to the floor, then turned around to begin cleaning up the med kits. When he was done he helped me move the unconscious pilot over to the pile of sheets that Duo had laid out for him, and I covered Wufei with one of the blankets as carefully as I could. 

Quatre sat back and looked at me, and I figured I owed him the courtesy of looking up at him. I saw something in his eyes that looked like sadness, or grief, and I didn't know why it was there. I was too afraid to ask. 

"Are you going to stay with him?" he asked. 

I nodded. I didn't want to just leave him here alone for the next ten hours – any number of things could go wrong, and I wasn't about to let them go wrong if there wasn't someone here to fix them. 

He smiled, a small smile. "I thought so. I'll leave these here, then," he said, indicating the med kits as he pushed himself up off the floor. "I'm going to go keep an eye on Trowa," he said softly. "Do you want me to send Heero down?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I want to check him over and make sure he's not glossing over some serious injury," I managed to say with a smile. 

Quatre nodded. "Good night, then." 

"Night." 

He turned and climbed up the ladder, his footsteps echoing up the stairs toward the house, and the bay was left in silence once more. 

I sat and stared at the med kits, hugging my knees to my chest. It wasn't exactly warm down here, and my sweatshirt wasn't wearable anymore. I focused on the boy sleeping just before me, watching his chest rise and fall slowly in the dim mobile suit bay. 

I didn't know how much time had passed before I heard steps clanging down the stairs, and I looked up to see a rather reluctant-looking Heero Yuy climbing down the ladder. He was carrying one of my clean sweatshirts in his hand. 

I blinked as he hopped off the last rung, landing nimbly on the floor and tossing the sweatshirt at me. 

"…Thank you," I managed to get out, unable to hide the surprise from my voice. 

He came over and sat down before me; I could see that his hair was still wet – he had indeed taken a shower, and the blood and sweat had been washed away. He smelled faintly of soap. 

"You sound surprised," his matter-of-fact tone rang through the bay. 

"I… I just didn't expect… thank you," I repeated, softer, looking away from his cool blue eyes. I put the sweatshirt on, pulling it over my tank top and hiding my arms once more. I took a breath, then looked back up at him to see him still looking at me, face placid and calm. "So. Are you really all right?" 

"Yes," he replied. "There's nothing serious." 

I peered at his face, eyeing the small cuts here and there; he did seem to be telling the truth. Nothing looked serious. 

"Good. How's that?" I asked, pointing to what seemed to be the worst of his injuries, an inch-long cut on his left arm. It was fresh and pink on his pale, newly-washed skin. 

He glanced down. "Fine." 

I sighed. "All right. I believe you. No broken ribs?" 

"No." 

"Okay. You can go." 

There was a beat of silence. 

"You're staying down here?" 

Yeah." I looked away again. 

"Quatre said it would take ten hours to get Sally here." 

"Yeah," I repeated. 

Silence again. 

"I'm going to come back in a few hours, and you're going to get some sleep then," he said, his voice still calm and even, and then I heard him stand up and climb back up the ladder, his footsteps fading. 

I looked back at Wufei, still sleeping on the floor. He looked so peaceful. 

"Thank you, Heero," I whispered. 

Silence. Wufei's breathing was shallow but even, and I watched him for a few moments more, content that he would at least stay that way – stay alive – for the time being. I hoped it would be longer than that. 

He really did look peaceful. I didn't think I had ever seen him look so calm or relaxed since I'd known him. Or at least since I could remember knowing him. He always looked so angry; a stark contrast to the serenity that I could see in his face now. 

His hair was still matted about his face, however, making him look like an unkempt little boy who had spent too long playing outside in the mud.

Before I knew what I was doing, I had gingerly reached over, smoothing the black hair away from his face, untangling it as gently as possibly. There was this uneasy, almost nervous feeling in my stomach as I pulled the ebony strands away from his face, and I didn't really know why. 

Well, I mused with a half-smile, sure I knew why. I knew that if he were to wake up right now, those limp hands of his would be in a death grip around my throat in less than two seconds. This was taboo. If he caught me touching his hair – touching *him* – 

But he wasn't going to wake up, something inside my head whispered, and with it came a new surge of fear. 

"Hey, you," I whispered to the still form on the floor before me. "Don't go doing anything else stupid, okay? Or you're gonna be hearing from me." 

I sighed. "What am I going to do with you?"

I pulled my knees back up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, and sat in the silence of the bay, trying to ignore whatever it was in my stomach that was making me act this way. 

***

Three hours. It had already been three hours. It hadn't felt that way, but I couldn't even say if it felt like longer or shorter. Perhaps shorter – time seemed frozen down here, sitting and watching the still form of the Chinese boy lying at my feet, watching the heart monitor that I had rigged up flash steadily with each heartbeat. 

About an hour ago – or maybe longer, maybe shorter, who knew? – I had needed to do *something*. So I had thrown together the crude instrument before me: 2 wires that served as the anode and cathode, sensors taped to his wrists, the wires connecting back into the oscilloscope I'd pilfered for my workbench a few weeks ago. There was no sound, only the steady beam tracing across the blue screen, and I alternated between watching the light run across the readout and watching his chest rise and fall beneath the blanket. 

I closed my eyes for a moment, cutting out the oscilloscope light, cutting out the body on the floor, but I was unable to escape the trail of blood that always seemed to follow in my wake. 

Blood. It was always blood. Somehow the people around me always seemed to get hurt. It was better when I got hurt. I hated it when other people got hurt. 

Duo, Quatre, now Trowa and Wufei. I was sure I had hurt Heero somehow, somewhere along the way. Duo had certainly hurt him over me. How pointless this all was.

Duo, Quatre, and Heero. And now Trowa and Wufei. 

I sighed, opening my eyes, fixing my gaze on the oscilloscope once more. I wanted this war to end. Wufei had been wrong – I wasn't deluding myself. I knew there was a war. I knew very well there was a war. I knew that I was consciously shoving that knowledge down and hiding the fact that it was there beneath the scarred layers of thought that were all that was left of my mind. I knew there was a war. And I hated it. 

I hated it, hated this war, because look at what it was doing to these boys, to these people. These *boys* did not deserve this. They did not deserve to carry guns and pilot machines that could only bring death. They did not deserve to have to *call* themselves Death, or Justice, or Perfect Soldier or any such thing. And not one of them deserved to be lying here, hooked up to a thrown-together EKG, torn and broken and unconscious. 

They did not deserve the sadness that I saw in Quatre's eyes. And they did not deserve the sadness that I could see – albeit hidden so well that I didn't think that even *he* knew it was there – in Wufei's face. 

I could see it there now, when the mask of anger had fallen away and left only a scared little boy, and I was only a scared little girl sitting here and trying to keep him alive by watching him breathe alone. 

Where was the point? 

And why did it come down to this, I reprimanded myself, blinking and focusing on the oscilloscope beam as it faded to a wide line and then back to the thin light running across the display. I was losing my focus. Focus. 

Don't focus on Wufei, because I didn't understand him and I didn't understand myself. I didn't understand why I was so worried about him, because when had he shown me anything even resembling kindness? And when he had, he had made it painfully obvious that it was against his better judgment. 

*I* was against his better judgment. 

"Why did you take me out of there?" I found myself whispering to the unconscious boy before me. "Why didn't you leave me? Why didn't you kill me?" 

His still form offered me no answers, and so I stopped asking questions. I shut out the doubt until all that was left was the quiet bay, the steady flicker of the oscilloscope, and the silence in my head. 


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: sigh Not mine. Not making any money from 'em, either. Oh, and I stole the Esca song, that's Yoko Kanno's. ::bows:: 

Watching You

Part 3

"Win dain a lotica, en val tu ri si lo ta. Fin dein a loluca, en dragu a sei lain. Vi fa-ru les shutai am, en riga-lint…"

Heero stopped on the stairs leading down to the bay, briefly surprised at the voice that washed over him. It was soft, and scared, but still enchanting in a way he couldn't explain. 

He also couldn't explain why he crept down, as silently as possible, to the platform above the bay and stood, leaning against the railing, watching her. 

She was singing to him. 

Or maybe she was singing to herself; Wufei was still unconscious after all. But somehow Heero got the distinct feeling… 

She was singing to him.

"Win chent a lotica, en val tu ri si lo ta. Fin dein a loluca, si katigura neuver. Floreria for chesti, si entina…" 

He couldn't recognize the words, didn't know where she had gotten the song from. But even more than that, he couldn't figure out why she was – 

He knew how Wufei treated her. Hell, he knew how *he* treated her. And it hadn't exactly always been with much kindness. Even Duo's hand had not always been kind to her; the scars visible on her face and the ones hidden beneath the sleeves her sweatshirt were evidence of that. The fact that she could no longer live with Duo, no longer let him touch her was better evidence.

And here she was, staring at an oscilloscope… No, it was an EKG, he realized, seeing the wires running beneath the blanket and the beam running periodically across the screen. An EKG – she had rigged it up and was watching it, watching Wufei in the middle of the night, and she was *singing* to him like she was his mother. 

He didn't understand. 

She was not without her faults. She was too timid sometimes, too volatile at others. Too unpredictable in general, and she had been an OZ spy. She had betrayed them to OZ more than once, and only after Quatre had begged and pleaded for days had they been able to agree to let her stay, perhaps as a prisoner, less likely as an ally, but stay nonetheless and not, as Wufei had so desperately wanted, to "serve justice" and see her killed.

Wufei had wanted to see her killed. He had wanted to do it himself. Heero himself had nearly killed the girl at least twice. And each time she had looked up at him with those clouded green eyes, and he had wondered why he couldn't do it. Why the hell he had brought her to Relena's instead of pulling the trigger. Why the hell he had asked her questions instead of letting Wufei beat her senseless. 

Why the hell he'd let himself slip carelessly into the mindset he lived with now, of almost trusting her judgment if he wasn't fast enough to catch himself.

She had been his friend, at first. Or as close as anyone got – as close as Duo had gotten, probably. That had been before any of this, after that day she followed him back from the school and proved that she knew how to service a mobile suit. He had let her work on his suit – on *his* suit – and she had betrayed them all. And they had let her return. 

He could understand why she got along with Quatre. They had the same mindset – he'd seen her after she'd killed three of OZ's soldiers and she had been ready to break down and lose it. There she had been, broken at the inadvertent loss of three lives by her hand, when he had taken so many without a thought – 

He shook his head slightly, trying to clear it. The singing had stopped, and she had set her chin on her knees, content to watch the oscilloscope in silence once more. 

He moved then, brushing the thoughts fully away and coating the world with ice once more, descending the ladder into the bay. When he turned to face her, feet on the ground, she was looking up at him, eyes wide, and he could see her fear. He wondered if she was afraid that he had heard her. 

He made no mention of it. "I'm here to watch him." 

She blinked; she looked as if she recalled his saying so, but hadn't actually believed that he would come back. She looked at her watch. "But it's only been 6 hours – Duo won't be back with Sally for – "

"That's why I said I was here to watch him. I told you before; you are going to bed," he informed her, looking down at her from his standing position, fixing cool Prussian blue eyes on her. 

"I – I can't just –" 

"Yes you can," he said, unwilling to hear her illogical arguments. She needed sleep – she had been awake hours before they had left on this mission over 24 hours ago, and he knew she hadn't slept since. If nothing else, he could see it in her face; her fatigue was clear in the dark circles beneath her eyes, and even her gaze was clouded with the effects of having gone too long without sleep. And they couldn't afford to loose Wufei – a valuable pilot – because the person they had appointed to watch him had fallen asleep. That's all there was to it. He would leave no room for the possibility of concern for her welfare. He refused to believe that he cared about anything other than the resource that Wufei was to them. 

He refused to believe that, because it was all he knew how to do.

He sat down beside her, eyes still locked on hers. "Get up," he commanded, leaving no room for argument in his voice. "Go to bed. I won't carry you up." 

She looked at him a moment more, silently begging, but he did not change his expression. 

She sighed. "*Fine*." She pushed herself slowly off the floor; his gaze followed her as she stood above him now. 

Silence. 

"Go," he repeated. 

"I… Heero… Thank you," she said softly, and turned towards the ladder. 

He nodded to her back, and fixed his eyes on the oscilloscope for the next four hours.

***

__

"You." 

She only looked at him, his single word hanging like ice in the cold space between them. 

She was standing there, arms crossed like she knew everything in the whole world, like she knew and she wasn't going to tell him, not even if he begged. Her hair was in the same two pigtails, eyes black as coal fixing him with that sharp yet amused look that he remembered her as having. 

"What are you doing here?" he demanded. 

"I think you know." She smiled smugly.

"I don't."

"Then you're just being stupid, like you always were." 

"Why are you here? " he repeated. Then, "Stop haunting me." 

"I'm not haunting you," she said matter-of-factly. Her eyes narrowed. "Have you ever thought that perhaps you are the one haunting me?" 

He was incredulous. "Don't be a baka. I'm not the one who's dead." 

She smiled; an unreadable smile, sad and happy and knowing all at the same time. It hurt him.

"Are you so sure about that?" 

"Yes!" How could she even be asking him such stupid questions?

"Then maybe," she said, "you need to pay a little more attention." She sighed, as if he were too difficult for her to deal with right now. "Didn't she tell you that?"   
He blinked. "She has nothing to do with this." 

"You're thicker than I thought. You're hopeless. No wonder they think what they do." 

"Nani? And what do they think?" 

"She told you that too."

"Leave her out of this!" he insisted, hands balling into fists, as if he could do something with them. 

"I can't." 

"You won't," he accused sharply.

"*You* won't," she replied.

He would have turned away, if he could have. "She doesn't matter." 

"She doesn't?"   
"No." 

"Baka." 

"*Baka*." 

She laughed, a peal of bells and gunshots. That hurt him too.

"You need to wake up, Wufei."

His eyes snapped open; harsh white halogen light stared him back in the face, and he cringed at the pain. 

His entire body was in pain. 

But he could overcome that. Physical pain meant nothing to him. It couldn't. He wouldn't let it.

He was lying on the floor of the mobile suit hangar; he could just see the ladder off to the side – the one that led up to the platform, then up towards the stairs. 

There was something cool on his wrists, and his midsection was stiff with bandages. 

He turned his head the slightest bit, trying to discern what was going on. He remembered the battle, remembered how they had been overwhelmed and remembered being hit with a missile. He remembered the red warning lights flashing on and off, remembered the alarms and buzzers wailing in his ears. 

He didn't remember anything after that. 

He was surprised to see Yuy sitting next to him, looking at him with a cool blue gaze and an expressionless face.

"What…?" Wufei asked, his voice coming with some difficulty. 

"You took a bad hit and passed out. Duo's on his way back with Sally." 

Wufei could feel his brow furrow. But from the feel of it… hadn't he already been bandaged? 

"But I've already been bandaged," he said, unable to keep the confusion from his voice. 

Something unreadable passed through Heero's eyes. "That was Koji."

Wufei's eyes narrowed. *Koji*.

"Just stay put and don't move," Yuy commanded. 

"Hai," Wufei agreed; he didn't really feel like moving, anyway. 

Heero's gaze slid off to the side, to something he'd been watching. "Hn. Don't need this anymore." He reached over and turned the device off, before lifting the blanket Wufei was beneath. 

Wufei glanced down and saw that he had indeed been bandaged; he also saw that two wires had been taped to his wrists. That was what felt so cool. What were they for?   
Heero deftly yanked the wires off his wrists, then covered him with the blanket. 

"What were those?" Wufei demanded as Heero placed the wires on top of the device. 

The cool gaze swung back to him again. "EKG." 

EKG? They didn't have an… Well, it looked like it had been jerry-rigged at the last moment anyway. How touching, he thought, not without sarcasm. Had they really thought he was going to die?

Damn. Maybe he had been trying to die, anyway. That's all that seemed worth doing anymore, sometimes, trapped in this endless war with these people who could not possibly understand what it was like for him. He could barely remember a time before this damned war, and he knew quite well that it hadn't been all that long since the thing had started in the first place. 

All he could remember now was that dream – Meiran looking at him with that gaze of hers, Meiran telling him he was a baka and that he was being stubborn. Well, he had the right to be stubborn. He had the right to be pissed-off. This wasn't his damned war, after all. If she hadn't gone and gotten herself killed – 

He closed his eyes. It was no use getting angry over it now. He was here, and he was alive, and he would have to deal with those two truths right now. 

The pain was beginning to inch back into his mind now, and he realized that he must have broken some ribs. His back also felt strange – numb but still stinging; he must have gotten injured there as well. His right cheek felt the same way. 

Well then. He would just wait for the doctor to come. And try not to think in the meantime.

Especially not about that damned baka onna, who seemed bent on being kind to every single one of them, even when she knew how much most of them had – and perhaps still – wanted to kill her. She was as bad as Winner, probably worse. That damned baka onna, who'd bandaged him and left him like this, under Yuy's icy glare, who'd stolen him away from the darkness that he was beginning to convince himself in this haze of pain that he had truly wanted. 

She had stolen his end from him. She had stolen more than that – she had stolen his conviction, his honor, more than once. Damnit. He was going to make her pay. 

One of these days.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own and Gundams or their pilots. The most I can do is rent one to take me downtown in this snowstorm to see Escaflowne. 

Watching You

Part 4

I stumbled down the ladder into the bay, still rubbing my eyes with my sleeves, not having bothered to pull them up over my hands. Despite having showered, they still felt dirty and I couldn't explain why. 

Sally looked up from her position on the floor next to Wufei. I realized that he was awake, propped up on his elbows and scowling as usual. I almost smiled at that – it brought a measure of normalcy to the scene before me. Nothing since last night had seemed normal – not that anything was ever "normal" anymore, but still… I needed something to compare things to. 

Then Wufei looked up at me and his eyes narrowed and turned dark, and my stomach turned cold as I stopped three feet away from them. 

"Ah, there you are. Heero told me you were sleeping," Sally said, pushing herself to her feet. She looked me over once or twice. "Hm, the scarring was worse than I'd hoped," she murmured as her eyes fell on my face, speaking more to herself than to either of us. That was right – she hadn't seen me since we'd left the old base to settle here.

I had to keep myself from flinching at that. Of course, I wanted to tell her, of course they were bad. I wished people would stop reminding me of that. The pilots had stopped, for the most part, knowing the effect it had on me, but whenever I was sent out for supplies or parts or food, people always stared at me. I hated it. It was like I would never be able to forget. 

"You look tired; how do you feel?" This time Sally was addressing me. 

"Fine," I replied shortly, nerves still rubbed raw from last night's stress and the unintentional hurt her words had brought just now. Not to mention the look of pure death Wufei was giving me now, because I hadn't seen his eyes go that cold for a long time. 

And it was really bothering me. Why the hell was he looking at me like that?

"How is he?" I asked; Sally turned back to the boy on the floor. 

"He'll be fine. I believe you got to the cuts soon enough to prevent any major blood loss or tissue damage. He does have broken ribs, which will need time to heal. As I was just telling him," she said, glancing down at the scowling form beneath us, "no more missions. For a month." 

"Damnit, I said I was fine," he protested, pushing himself into more of a sitting position. 

"No you're not," she insisted sharply, eyes just as sharp as her voice. "Koji here may have done a good job at bandaging you, but your ribs will not heal overnight. No more piloting until they're fully healed." She turned back to me. "That was a good job you did last night." 

I shook my head, looking at my feet so that I wouldn't have to look at Wufei. "No, I was just doing whatever I could. I'm just glad you're here." 

***

Not only was I glad that Sally had come, but I was just as glad that she had decided to stay on for a week to make sure that her instructions were being enforced. But that week had flown by and she'd had to leave this morning, putting Quatre and myself in charge and delegating us to helping out Trowa and Wufei. Heero had indeed been pronounced "fine" by Sally and had gone about beginning repair work on Wing. Trowa had needed to stay in bed for two or three days, just to make sure the concussion hadn't been more serious than it seemed, but by now he was up and about and working on repairs to his own Gundam. And Wufei had been limited to bed and "non-stressful activities" for at least another week.

That had sounded easier than it was. He had refused to stay in bed despite Sally's insistence and threats, and now that she had left this morning it was going to be all we could do to keep him from resuming his martial arts training. And aside from that, he'd been even meaner to me than usual. Every time I showed my face he seemed to bristle with hate and anger. And I'd thought he'd been maybe moving into indifference, before this accident. That maybe he'd begun to accept me. Well, count me wrong. And so he continued to ignore me, to ignore anyone and go right ahead and train, despite the strain he was putting on his broken ribs.

And what I still couldn't understand, after all this time, was how he could make me so angry. Wufei still managed to somehow strike up that chord that I never otherwise saw in myself – he would hit something with some look or some word and I would explode. I didn't know why, couldn't figure it out. No one really knew about it, since we really only had ever argued in private. Quatre would give me worried looks, when I would come back downstairs still fuming, but he hadn't said anything and somehow I couldn't tell him. 

But even Duo had been giving me curious looks, as of late.

Nonetheless, it had resulted in six yelling matches in nearly as many days. So far.

Take for example, right now. I had just been sent up with a tray of food – sandwich, apple, and drink – for him. It had been one day shy of a week since he had been injured, and here he was, in the middle of a kata, and glaring at me for having opened the door immediately after knocking. As if I had been all that terribly rude for assuming he was in bed as he should have been.

And I was standing in the doorway, currently deciding which was better – to stare at my feet and avoid the look he was giving me, or glare at him and tell him off for doing something that could further strain his injury. 

He didn't give me quite enough time to decide; he straightened and continued staring at me. 

"What the hell do you want?" 

I glared back, already provoked by his look and his words before I could think. Here we went again. And I was getting just a little sick of being treated like that. He was getting to me. I was breaking. I probably had been ever since this whole thing had started. But I wasn't about to admit it. 

"I'm bringing you lunch. And you're not supposed to be doing that. Sit down." God, why could he make me so angry? I brushed past him and set the tray on the table beside his bed. "There. Now eat it and rest like a good little injured Gundam pilot." 

He stared at me, blinking. Even I was a little surprised at the sound of my voice, not to mention the words that had just spilled from my mouth. 

Suddenly the familiarity of the situation fell upon me, for the first time and I wondered how I could've missed it before. It was just like that day, however long ago it was, when he'd first showed up in my room with soup instead of Quatre and told *me* to eat. It was déjà vu, only turned around so that he was the injured one, and I was the… 

"What happened to you?" he asked, the slightest hint of surprise bordering his voice but it was mostly sarcasm edged with apathy; nonetheless, he was eyeing the food. 

I sighed. Well, I hadn't been having the best of days. Sally had examined me this morning before she left, and reported that the scars were as healed as they were going to get. It had just sunk in, for real, that I was going to look like this – scarred and torn and burned – for the rest of my life. It just hadn't hit home, before, I supposed. I hadn't had time to stop and think about it. I had been able to convince myself that they were still healing. 

But they weren't. They weren't going to heal any more. 

It was superficial and selfish, but I didn't want to look like this for the rest of my life.

"Nothing," I replied, not even bothering to let the fact that he'd asked what was wrong register, instead pointing to the food. "I'm not the issue here. You are. You and your food, which I don't see you eating." 

His face twisted into a mask of anger then. I actually couldn't believe it hadn't done so sooner. Had I actually caught him off guard? 

"Don't tell me what to do, *onna*," he spat, eyes going a shade darker as they fixed themselves on me. 

"Fine," I replied. "Don't eat. See if I care. I know you don't care what I think. But this wasn't ever about what I thought – that's doctor's orders, right there," I said, pointing to the tray, "and she'll be pissed at you if you don't eat it." 

"I don't care," he said, falling back into his kata, turning his eyes away from me and ignoring me. "Besides, she left." 

That was it. "I *know* you don't care, all right? I know that. But *I* care, baka. Look – you wanted to break me? Fine. You've broken me. I'm damned sick of being treated this way, Wufei. What do you want me to be?!" 

Silence. He had stopped his kata again and was staring at me; I could feel my face flush. I hadn't meant to explode at him like that… Taking my anger over my scars out on him wasn't going to do any of us any good. It would more likely than not result in something bad, especially on my part. Like pain. Induced by him.

"I don't want you to be anything," he replied finally, breaking the silence, but there was some softness, something unsure beneath his voice. 

"But you must," I reasoned, still flushed but beginning to calm down, beginning to feel more desperate for an end to this than anything, "or you wouldn't keep… pushing me. Or whatever it is you're doing. What are you trying to do?" 

He crossed his arms over his chest, sighed irritably. His eyes dropped from my face to the floor, studying the patternless metal flooring. "I don't know," he scowled. "But you know what I do know?" he asked suddenly, voice just as annoyed and sharp as ever, eyes rising to meet mine and I nearly shuddered. 

"What?" I asked softly, suddenly almost afraid to answer, as if that would somehow scare him off, of all things. But the air was suddenly delicate – the situation was suddenly delicate – and it seemed like I could shatter it without a second through if I wasn't careful. 

Which was odd. Especially for Wufei. And that bothered me all the more. What the hell was he pulling here? 

He paused. His eyes narrowed, and when he spoke, he spoke with self-disgust. Something I had never heard in his voice before. 

"I respect you," he said quickly, "I respect you and damnit, I don't want to. You're just a girl – some *girl* who wormed her way in here a year* ago, who got that baka Maxwell to fall for her and who happened to be good at fixing mobile suits. And then you turned out to be our enemy – you've done nothing but prove how weak you are – "

He paused; I didn't even dare to breathe, his words still ringing in my ears, my eyes wide, my stomach churning. What was he *saying* – ? And if what he was saying was true, he had a hell of an odd way of showing it. 

"And yet you've done nothing but prove how strong you are," he went on, voice softer now, and he wasn't looking at me anymore. "I don't *understand* you. I don't understand why Winner wouldn't let me kill you. I don't understand why I *didn't* kill you."

He stopped, seemingly out of things to say. I dared to take a breath then, still watching him as he watched a patch of floor somewhere a yard away from his feet. 

"I don't understand why you didn't kill me either, actually," I said softly, the anger over my scars slowly dissipating into despair, self-pity that I normally would've shoved off, but didn't have the mental capacity to right now. 

His eyes snapped up from the floor, meeting mine once again. They were as cool and unreadable as ever. "I didn't know what to think about that, especially since… since I remember thinking at that moment that I wanted nothing more in the world than to die. I wanted you to kill me, and then you didn't, and then my life just fell apart… 

"I don't know," I sighed. "I don't know anything anymore. I don't know what I want – I mean, I know I want to stay here, to help all of you, because I think you're doing the right thing. But I also think…"   
My words were falling from my mouth just as quickly as they could form themselves in my mind, raw thoughts tumbling out as sound that I was sure he didn't want – didn't need – to hear, and some of the sounds articulated things that I'd been afraid to think of, even to myself, even in the silence of my own mind, which I still wasn't sure was a safe place for me to live… 

But these things had been forming in my mind, for I knew not how long. And even with the events of the past week… they were still there. 

"Listen. You matter to me. In some sick, twisted, I-don't-know-how way you matter, and the fact that you're never happy matters. You know that? I don't get it. But all I do get is that you're sad – you probably don't even know it, but you are. The same way Quatre is. The difference is that you're hurting and you just won't let anybody see." I laughed just a little. "I've seen you hurting, I've been watching you and I wish you would stop doing whatever it is you're doing to yourself. It's –"

"Then stop watching," he snapped.

"I can't," I snapped right back at him. He was at it again, able to pull out my anger and make me throw it right back in his face. "I don't blame you," I said shortly. "And I don't blame you for hating me, either. But I think… I think that you're selling yourself short." 

I caught his eyes again, and despite my heart pounding in my head, throbbing in my ears, I held them; those cool, expressionless orbs that were right now holding… fear? Hate? Anger? I couldn't tell – 

"I think that you force yourself to be alone. And I think that you're so intent on it that you refuse to let anyone listen to you, for real. And I'm sorry for that, because I think that deep down, hidden behind words like 'justice' and 'strength,' you really have a lot to say.

"I would listen to you, you know," I finished, although I could barely hear those words myself, and I was suddenly shocked that I'd actually uttered them out loud because I hadn't even believed I felt that way until the moment the syllables had passed through my lips. I stopped then, my words running silent as my thoughts ran dry. Oh *God*, what had I just told him…? 

His eyes narrowed as he looked at me through the silence. 

Then, "Onna, you have no right to say you're sorry for me. Why the hell can't you just say you're angry? Why can't you just tell me you hate me? I put you down all the time and you just f**king take it. How the hell can you be *sorry* for me, or whatever it is that you say you are? How the hell can you be so kind to me? I can't take it – onna, why don't you just get angry with me?!" His voice was rushed, angry, but somehow he didn't seem angry with *me*.

"Get angry at you?" I echoed. "What the hell do you think you've been making me do for the past week, *baka*? Hell, it's easy to get angry with you!" 

"Then why are you still here? Why don't you hate me?" he asked, and if his voice hadn't been so full of acid-sharp hate, I would've sword it was desperate. "I never asked for your sympathy!"

But I couldn't hate him, not even after all of this. Couldn't he understand that? 

Couldn't *I* understand that?

"And I never offered it," I replied, my own voice rising to match his. "I never gave you any –" 

"You saved my life." 

The words that had cut me off hung in the air, crystalline, silencing all else around us.

He had made it sound more like I'd cursed him than saved him.

And I hadn't saved his *life* –

_Sally had pulled me aside, later that day, and told me that I had done more good than I had thought, by bandaging him so quickly. By binding the broken ribs. By stopping the bleeding. She told me she couldn't have done much for him if I hadn't – _

Sound broke the air, finally. It startled me to hear that it was my own voice. 

"And you saved mine," I told him softly. "So I guess we're at a draw." I paused. "I'm sorry." It suddenly seemed like the only thing left I could say. 

But his eyes narrowed and he looked down at me, angrier. "Stop apologizing!" he said, somewhere between a plea and a yell. 

"I can't," I told him, and suddenly the things that I had thought I had finally gotten in check were spilling out all over again. "You deserve it, Wufei. Somehow… I don't know. It seems like something terrible happened to you a long time ago, and you haven't gotten the apology you deserved for it. You don't deserve terrible things, Wufei," I told him, voice as firm as I could make it. "I'm sorry. For whatever happened to you. I'm sorry – I'm sorry until that can make it better." 

He stared at me, and suddenly there *was* something in his eyes. And it was fear. 

My stomach dropped. 

"I never asked you to save me," he said flatly. 

I started. "But I –" 

"I never asked to *live* after that," he went on; his eyes had become unfocused, he wasn't really talking to me anymore. "I never asked for this war. I never asked to fight this war, damnit! It was all *her* fault," he accused. "Her fault, for dying, for being so damn stubborn. And she won't leave me alone!" 

He looked up, eyes focused once more. 

"Just like you won't leave me alone. Is that too much to ask, onna?" 

The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could think about them. "When I care this much about you, yes." 

He blinked. "Then stop caring." 

"I can't." 

"Baka." 

"Baka."

"I don't deserve –" 

"*I* don't –"

"This is pointless," he said. 

"Hai." 

"The last person I respected was her. And she went and died. I won't do it again." 

I blinked, feeling my heart speed up, feeling my stomach drop. 

"All right, then. So don't," I told him softly. 

"Leave me alone," he scowled, and turned his back on me.

And that was it. It was over. Whatever it was. 

I blinked again. "Fine. I'm gone." 

I was out the door in less than ten seconds, now standing with my back to it trying to catch my breath. I hadn't noticed that I'd needed to catch it. 

What was going on? Had he just told me he *respected* me? Well he sure as hell didn't act like it, that was for sure – 

And he *wanted* me to hate him? Whatever for? Why was making the effort to spark my anger? 

I didn't understand. And more than that, I didn't understand what the hell *I* had pulled back there. What had I told him, that he mattered and that I didn't like to see him hurting – 

Was that how I really felt? Was *that* what had been sitting in my gut for… 

I didn't even know how long it had been. I truly didn't. But suddenly I realized that it had been there so long that I had begun to live with it like it had been there forever. 

I didn't want him to hurt. 

Oh, God, what did that say about me? 

I suddenly had to catch my breath again, and I didn't like that.

Enough. 

But we hadn't resolved anything. 

Had we?   
_"I respect you."_

His words rang in my ears. But… He was obviously hurting. Someone else – "she" – had hurt him before, and apparently now I was doing the same. But that didn't make sense. And above that, I didn't want to hurt him – but what the hell was I supposed to do? Stop *being*?

_Stop caring_. That was what he had said. But – and I had told him – I could no sooner stop caring than I could cease breathing. And the more important question there was *why*?

I didn't know. But were these things ever logical? Was *I* ever logical? Probably not, I thought with a half-smile. My life had seemed pretty devoid of logic lately. But even so, I was still faced with the same problem. 

What was I going to do? 


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam. Or the pilots. Or their mechas. Oh, but sometimes I wish I did… 

AN: Wai! Gomen for taking *soooo* incredibly LONG to get this out. I've had a *very* busy semester. But I swear there is more! And soon! 

Watching You

Part 5

Well, I solved that problem easily enough. I did nothing. Quatre somehow knew and took over bringing Wufei his food. His wounds healed, and he was allowed to resume normal activity, which wasn't really much different from what he had been doing while he had supposedly been recovering, except that he was able to take on missions again.

Wufei avoided me, and I avoided him as well. He had said to leave him alone; those words rang in my ears louder than anything, and so I settled for exactly that. He barely looked at me, barely spoke to me except to demand repairs or new parts. And even then, he didn't really speak *to* me. There were no more yelling matches, because he would no longer yell at me.

He stopped letting me work on his suit, stopped even asking me for things and started snatching parts and doing it himself. And after a while, *that* began to hurt even more. Because I could still see pain in his unfocused eyes whenever he did demand something of me, and I could hear it in his voice whenever he snapped out a command or an insult – to me or anyone else, for that matter. He was sharp with me, but he was sharp with Duo, with Quatre as well. He didn't speak much to Heero or Trowa at all. 

What the hell was he doing? 

What the hell was *I* doing, worrying about this? 

What was I *doing*?

All I did know was that I didn't want to see him this way. Friend or not, he was killing himself slowly from the inside out, and it was hurting me to watch it. I wanted desperately to fix it – to fix *something* – but there was nothing I could do. Nothing I could say. 

And so I sat and watched. And pushed whatever words I had said to him that day when we'd last fought deep, deep into the back of my mind and buried them beneath anything I could. Because I didn't want to think about them, and because they weren't doing either of us any good.

I watched for months. I watched all through the winter, until it was February and the hills were covered with snow and the sky was slate grey and the air was frigid and so cold it was nearly solid. 

I watched as the cut marring Wufei's cheek faded to almost nothingness; until I almost couldn't remember a time before my own scars had been there, crisscrossing my skin. 

And I watched as the colonies cut their ties with the very soldiers they had sent to Earth in their name – as they shunned the Gundam pilots for OZ's new and false "peace," as they abandoned these boys and their cause for the instant gratification that we knew would not last. 

I wasn't sure who it hit the hardest – I honestly couldn't tell, because I was still watching Wufei. His honor was all that had kept him going; even I knew how important the backing of his people was to him. And now it was gone, and he became even nastier. He killed more people than he had to, on missions. He snuck in and worked on his Gundam at night while no one else was there, and he was nearly impossible to find during the day. It was a miracle he hadn't left – he'd seemed all but invisible for weeks now. 

And that anger – that pain and betrayal – hadn't left his eyes. When I could catch his gaze, I didn't like what I saw. Because I was seeing more and more anger, and less and less *Wufei*. 

And that was all I was concerned about, until the day that I realized that Wufei might not be the one who needed me the most.

***

"Koji?" The voice was small and timid; I jumped anyway, not expecting anyone to be awake at this hour. Or at least, not awake and asking me things. 

I looked up from my workbench to see Quatre looking down at me, green eyes shining brightly in my worklight and skin looking paler than usual. I blinked, then stood. 

"Quatre? What is it?" 

He paused, as if thinking something over. I was still held by his eyes – by the immense uncertainty and pain that I saw in them. When had that gotten there? Just now? Had it been there before? I wracked my mind, trying to remember if I had possibly seen a hint of something this compelling in the past few days. 

But I was coming up blank. 

"I… I don't know. It's silly," he said, turning away. My heart wrenched to see him turn – this was Quatre, the only Gundam pilot who'd *ever* thought I was worth more than the work my own two hands could do, if even that. The only one, aside from Duo now, that I could go to if I needed to talk. The one who'd, ultimately, saved my life. The one who'd forced Wufei to save it as well. 

And here he was, sounding like he *needed* me, and… and leaving. I couldn't bear it. I reached out and caught his wrist. 

"What is it?" I asked softly. He stopped, and turned, eyes still eerie in the lamplight. "Quatre… you know you can tell me anything. Ask me anything." 

He nodded. "Yes," he said slowly. "I know I can. But it seems silly now to ask." 

I studied him for a minute before releasing his wrist. "Well, you know you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. But I *am* here if you need me." 

He smiled then, a small smile but just a hint of it reached up to his eyes and took away some of the sadness and uncertainty there. 

"Thank you," he said softly. "That means a lot." 

I laughed, softly. "Well, it shouldn't. I mean, it's implicit – I'm your *friend*, Quatre, and it's part of the job description." 

He laughed too. "I… I guess so. I… guess I forget that sometimes. It's so hard to remember things like friends sometimes…" The sadness was back in his voice, the smile gone from his eyes, and he was wrenching my heart out all over again. 

"It's not that I'm ungrateful," he went on. "I'm not – I'm thankful for everything that I have, but…"

I said nothing as he trailed off, wondering if he was really going to tell me what was bothering him. He seemed to think about this a moment himself, but ultimately he spoke again. 

"I can't remember what I'm fighting for anymore, Koji." His voice was soft, scared, and almost ashamed. "I know that it's something important. It must be, or I wouldn't be fighting for it, because God knows how hard it was for me to pick up arms in the first place… but I can't remember, Koji. I can't remember." 

There were tears in his voice, and such loss that I wanted to reach out, to hold him and comfort him and tell him… 

What *were* they fighting for, after all? If he could forget… if I couldn't quite name it, then really, what kind of cause was it? 

But there was a name for it, a word for the idea, and as I searched my mind I came up with what I thought might be that word. 

"Peace," I ventured softly, still wanting to reach out, resisting my body's unconscious pulling as if it wanted to embrace him all of its own will. "You're fighting for peace, because there's nothing else worth fighting for." 

He laughed a little. "That sounds… so stupid." 

I laughed again too. "Yeah," I agreed. "Yeah, it does. But I guess it's something humanity has to do, you know? Fight in order to end the fighting."

He sighed. "I guess." 

"It *is* important, Quatre. What you do here." I waved my hand at the bay, at the Gundams sleeping inside it. "What you all do here. You're necessary. The colonies are stupid for shunning you – they need you, and they won't realize their mistake until it's too late. You are all important – that's why I'm helping you." I let my arm drop to my side. "You're all doing the right thing. It's the least – it's the only thing – I can do. I wish I could do more." 

He looked up at me then, Green eyes shining in the harsh halogen of my worklight. "No, you're doing more," he said, smiling again, wider and this time it touched more than just a fraction of his eyes. "You're doing a lot more." 

I shook my head. "Not really. But whatever helps. Whatever I can do. And you're giving it all you have – and I know that you guys will win. You'll find peace. And then you won't have to fight anymore." 

Silence, for a moment. Then his voice, small, barely filling up the space between me and him. 

"Promise?" 

I looked at him, for all intents and purposes a small child now in the lamplight, begging to be told that things will get better, that the world will work out right in the end. 

I nodded. "Yep. I promise." 

He moved then, almost as if to embrace me, but stopped himself, biting his lip. When he looked up at me, there was something in his eyes; something I couldn't name. 

"Thank you," he said softly. 

"Always. I owe you my life. Anything I can do, Quatre. Anything. Just ask." 

He nodded. "Thank you," he repeated.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Nope, not mine, wish they were but they aren't, don't you know this already? ;)

AN: Yet again…. I'm slow. ^^;; Gomen nasai! ::bows::

Watching You

Part 6

Life became monotonous. There was no other way to put it – they flew missions, they came back, no one talked much, they did it again. Oh, sure, Duo would spend his free time playing video games and bugging the other pilots; Quatre was attempting to learn how to cook and fed us nightly. But there was no common meal – everyone ate when they had time, and rarely was that at the same time as someone else. I'd taken to eating with Quatre, who often ate with Trowa, but even then there wasn't much reasonable conversation. What was there to talk about? No one wanted to talk about the war, which left little else, really. 

This damned war. It was ruining everyone's lives, and it didn't take a genius to see that. Quatre seemed a little more sure of himself lately; I didn't know if talking to me had helped at all but I didn't care – it made me much happier to see *him* happy. But I could tell that the war was running people down, and the colonies abandoning them – us? – hadn't helped in the least. 

Especially not Wufei. He was still withdrawn, more so than Heero even, now. Heero talked to me. Granted, it was in two- or three-word sentences, but he talked to me, at least. Wufei was still avoiding me – anyone, really – as if human contact were the most vile thing on the planet. And that was all he had left now, all any of them had left now – the planet, because they sure as hell didn't have the colonies. But Wufei would have none of it, none of any of the pilots, none of me. And it was beginning to hurt, more sharply than the dull pain I was accustomed to his avoidance causing. It was beginning to hurt a whole hell of a lot more, and I couldn't say why. 

And that bothered me more than just about anything else. 

***

"Koji?" 

I blinked, looking over to see Duo looking at me, slight concern in his expression. 

"Huh? Oh, here," I said, handing him the wrench I'd pulled out of the toolbox at my feet. He disappeared back into Deathscythe's cockpit as I tried to concentrate on the voltmeter I had hooked up to the control panels inside. 

"You know," Duo's voice rang throughout the small cockpit and echoed out and down to me, "you could just tell me what's wrong." 

I looked up, although there was nothing to see but the very tip of a brown braid, hanging out of the cockpit. 

"What?" 

"What's wrong," the voice from inside repeated. "You could just tell me. Hell, you could just tell Quatre. It might help, ya know." 

Duo's head poked out sideways, looking intently at me. "Or, I mean, you could keep it all bottled up inside and end up going crazy and blowing us all to hell." He shrugged and grinned. "Your choice." 

"I would *not* blow you all to hell," I retorted, shaking my head. "Well, not *all* of you…" 

He snorted. "Just those of us that annoy you, ne?" 

I shrugged.

"Like Wufei?" 

I started, staring at Duo. 

He grinned. "Ah-hah. So *that's* what's bothering you!" 

"What?" I blinked. "Wufei?" 

Duo nodded. "Hah, well I *knew* he was bothering you. Don't let him get to you. He's just... Wufei," he said, eyes flickering over to the Chinese boy working in Shenlong's bay before settling back on me. "You can't win all of us over with that charming smile, ya know," he winked. "Some of us take more time, I guess." 

"Duo," I admonished, shaking my head. "It's not that. I'm not trying to 'win him over' or

anything like that. I just... I just wish he'd... well, *talk* to me. Acknowledge the fact that

I exist. Something - anything. Or..." I paused. "No, that's not even really what I want. What I *want* is for him to stop... killing himself. Doing this to himself. I mean, sure, being alone

is one thing, but... But he..." 

"Whoa, whoa." I felt a hand on my arm; I looked up and realized that my gaze had gravitated once more to the form over by Shenlong, and mentally slapped myself for it. What was going *on*...

"Koji, you don't... oh come on, don't tell me you feel *bad* for the Wu-man," Duo said, a look of pity in his eyes, as if *he* felt bad that I could possibly feel bad for Wufei.

"I - of course I do, Duo! I mean... he's... he hurts *so* much..." I sighed, shrugged out of 

Duo's grip. "It hurts me," I said, in a very small voice, not sure why I was admitting this to Duo in the first place. Wasn't this something better left to myself to mull over? Something better left silent and never told to anyone, let alone Duo... 

"Koji... Koji, look. You're a kind person. You and Quatre both," Duo said, sincerity suddenly coating his voice. "But you can't save all of us, you know. Some of us…" he paused, his eyes flashing a shade darker, "Some of us just don't seem to want saving." 

"You're telling me." I sighed. 

"Bah, nevermind." The darkness left his eyes as suddenly as it had appeared, and careless blue flashed back at me. "Lissen, don't let him get to you. He's just a pissy bastard, that's all. We all know that. No use worrying about it, ya know?"

"Yeah," I replied, but already I was wondering if I really *could* stop worrying, just like that. And I didn't think I could. It was the same as when Wufei himself had told me to stop caring. To stop watching. And I *couldn't*, because here I was, months later, somehow still watching him going through his daily routine of killing a little more of his humanity a day at a time, and it still hurt. A lot. 

And I just didn't know what to do about that anymore. 

"Koooooojiiiii…"

"Ne?" I looked up to see Duo waving his hand in front of my face. 

"Sheesh Koji, you know, you really *should* stop staring at him or people might think you have something for him. And where would *that* get you?" He sighed. "Baka," he laughed, punching me on the head softly, and picked up a wrench I suddenly realized I should've handed to him. "Why don't you get us some food - my stomach here's starting to complain more than I do."

"That's impressive," I replied, aware that Duo's magical mood-lightening abilities were indeed seeming to take affect. I got up and began climbing down the ladder, descending through the scaffolding surrounding Deathscythe in order to head for the bay exit. Of course, I had to pass Shenlong on the way out, and even though I tried to stare at my feet the whole time, I found my eyes once more inexplicably drawn to the cockpit, to see if Wufei was still working up there. 

He was up there all right, but he had stopped working and was looking down at me with an expression darker than death in his eyes. 

I looked down and didn't look up again until I was halfway up the stairs to the kitchen.

***

I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to consider the possibility. But I supposed I *had* to consider the possibility, because it had been bothering me for a good long while by now. Duo had stopped bugging me about it, but he still gave me looks that said he wanted to ask. Quatre didn't ask because he knew I wouldn't tell him anything, but even he had started giving me looks that said something similar. 

And I had been telling myself that I wanted Wufei to stop being so miserable. And I had realized that I was willing to do anything in my power to make that happen. And that scared me, because I was sure that was part of what I had once had with Duo... and I felt like I was betraying him, betraying something, to even consider that I felt something at all like that for Wufei. 

Then again, it didn't seem to matter much, considering the boy wouldn't even talk to me. It had been another two months, and he *still* refused to even think about speaking to me.

What was worse was that I had realized something. Sitting here in the kitchen with my hands curled around a slowly cooling mug of coffee, I was thinking about it even now. 

Because I didn't *just* want him to stop being so miserable. I wanted *him*.

And I wanted him to like *me*.

God, was I really that fickle? That selfish? Here I was, obviously hurting Quatre and most likely Duo as well. And I wanted Wufei. Chang Wufei, of all people – the one that yelled at me, the one that pushed me to the edge of anger until all I could see was the red of my temper, the solitary dragon that snapped at anyone who got in the way of his holy "Justice." 

The one that had saved my life. 

The one that had wanted to kill me. 

The one that I was watching now, sitting hunched purposefully over his dinner at the kitchen table, chopsticks flashing between his bowl and his mouth without a sound. The one that was purposefully ignoring my existence to the point that it hurt, just like the sharpness I could see in his eyes, in his motions even now. Each movement precise, practiced. Nothing wasted. 

Except his life, like he was wasting it now. 

And I couldn't do a thing about it. Telling him what I felt – especially when I almost didn't want to feel it myself – was the biggest mistake I could possibly make. It seemed that my only choice was to do what he said and stay the hell out of his life. 

I watched the chopsticks blur between the bowl and his mouth. He hadn't looked at me for more than a second or two since he'd come in here – he'd merely prepared his meal and sat down at the table and forcibly ignored me as if I wasn't even there. 

This sharpness he had wrapped himself up in was cutting him far deeper than it was cutting me, or anyone else. This permanent anger that he was making a part of himself that was slowly killing him and I wanted to shove him against a wall and tell him to stop it. And I couldn't. Who was *I* to do that?

What in the world had happened to this boy, this person, to make him so angry? To make him force himself to be this blade, this weapon of nothing but anger and vengeance so that the world could no longer cut him? What had happened to make him isolate himself – to *torture* himself – like this? 

It was torture, wasn't it? I knew it too – I was guilty of it myself. Maybe I was still doing it; all I knew was that it was torture to see him like this now. 

And all I could think was, _Who the hell am I to…?_

Who the hell was I to love him like this? 

I had to do something, but I just didn't know what. And here I was again, back at the beginning, telling myself that perhaps if staying out of his life was the best choice, then I should do just that. And I tried to do that. I tried to ignore him, to ignore how much I wanted to go and talk to him, tell him that he wasn't alone if he wanted someone to listen to him, to understand. But the more he withdrew, the more I wanted to do just that, until I felt like I was going to explode. 

Until one day, I guess I did.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Look, if I owned any of this stuff, I'd be doing something other than writing fanfiction! ;)

Watching You 

Part 7

I hadn't meant to. But he just got me so damn *worked up*, what else was I supposed to do? He could get me worked up by not speaking to me, just as easily as he could get me worked up by yelling at me. The two situations were one and the same. And I hated that. 

In fact, this was almost worse. 

And now, here I was, lying on a bench in the workout room and staring at the ceiling, sweat dripping into my eyes and stinging them with salt. 

The door opened and I looked over, wondering who it was, and it was Wufei who walked through the door. He cast me the briefest of glances before proceeding to ignore me, going straight to the corner with the weight racks and beginning to skim through them until he found something he deemed appropriate. 

I sat up and pulled my sweatshirt over my head. He had no need to see any of *that*, and I blushed crimson with shame at the state of my mottled skin. I hated the way I looked, hated the scars that marred my skin, and hated having anyone see them.

I turned my attention back to Wufei in the corner. I could feel my eyes narrow. His "accident" hadn't been all that long ago – should he really be in here, lifting weights of all things? His broken ribs couldn't be much more than barely healed, if that, and I knew he wouldn't care in the least about that. 

But going and re-cracking ribs didn't sound like a terribly intelligent idea to me. 

"Look," I said, standing up, knowing he wouldn't acknowledge my presence but hoping that he would at least listen to me, regardless. "You know, I can't imagine it being a wonderful idea to do that with your ribs the way they are, still. I know you hate me and won't talk to me, but at least listen to me, please. You're only going to hurt them again." 

He said nothing, did nothing to indicate that he had heard my request. He only picked up a set of weights and moved to the farthest corner of the room. 

I sighed. 

"*Wufei*," I said, more sharply but still eliciting no reaction. I stood and began making my way towards the corner. "Wufei, you can't ignore me forever. Even you're not that good." 

He began bicep curls – and I could tell it hurt, from the tensed look on his face that wasn't quite the normal look of concentration I'd seen when he'd done katas or something similar a million times before. 

God, was the boy really that stupid? 

"Wufei," I said shortly, crossing my arms over my chest, because I was so damned sick of how much this all *hurt*, of how much it ached to be ignored, of how much he was killing himself and how no one seemed to be doing anything about it. 

Well, over the past few weeks, I'd made up my mind. *I* was going to do something about it. And I didn't know what – but right now, he wasn't leaving me much choice, so I was going to improvise and see what I got. I couldn't possibly end up worse off than I was right now, with him ignoring me to the point where I could probably punch him in the face without getting a reaction… 

Or was that really it? Was that what I was going to have to do? 

I sincerely hoped not. 

"Wufei, stop or I'm going to *make* you stop," I tried, hardening my voice, my eyes, my composure. 

That did something – he didn't stop, but he looked up at me. *At* me, instead of around or through me. Dark eyes glittered in the midday sun streaming through the window as he sized me up, realized I was no threat, and then stared me down. 

"I will," I repeated, as firmly as I could. Because he we went again, he was working me up and I really *did* want to punch the boy in the face right about now. No matter that he'd have me pinned to the floor seconds later, probably with some cracked ribs of my own. 

He said nothing, however, so obviously more was required on my part. I searched my mind for something to offer. 

"Look, I told you before. You're selling yourself short. And what's more, you're killing yourself. You're killing yourself from the inside out, and I'm not going to sit here and watch you do that. I can't. God knows why, I'd just as soon wish for the ice that I can see in Heero's eyes, if it meant that I wouldn't have to feel this way. But I do. And I'm not going to let you do this." 

His eyes flashed dark. 

"Because even this, "I gestured at what he was doing now, "is killing you, in some small way. Stop *hurting* yourself, baka, before there's nothing left of you but-" 

"And what are you going to do about it?" he hissed, startling me into silence as he finally spoke to me, after all this time. "Save me? Save me how? What the hell can *you* do, onna?" 

There was a sick grin on his face. I had this terrible feeling, this horrible premonition that he had hit a breaking point, that he was going to do something stupid, and do it soon if I couldn't stop him. 

"I don't know," I said dumbly, staring into his twisted features with a sick feeling of dread. "But I'm going to do something." 

"Pfeh," he spat. "You can't do *anything*," he said, eyes glittering sharply. 

And I lost it. All that time of being ignored, hurting, not knowing what to do, watching silently on the sidelines… I lost it. And in one swift motion that I didn't know I had the strength for, I grabbed him by the arms and shoved him against the wall, pinning him there with all I had. He dropped the weights onto the mat, face contorting for the briefest of instants as his injuries connected with the concrete of the wall behind him. 

And he was already struggling to get free, and why he wasn't yet was a mystery and it could only be the adrenaline coursing through me, fear and anger and desperation –

"Listen Wufei, and listen well," I hissed at him, feeling my eyes narrow, feeling him strain against my grip and I knew I couldn't hold him much longer. "Listen. I see what you're doing. And if this is my fault, then I want you to tell me now. I want you to kill me now, and have it overwith, because there is no way in *hell* I am going to let you kill *yourself* over something as stupid as this. No *way*, do you hear me? If I'm the problem," and I let him go, stepped back and spread my arms, "then get rid of me." 

His face was angry as his hand whipped out – I closed my eyes, bracing myself – 

And he ripped my sweatshirt off, over my head in one swift motion. 

My eyes flew open as the cool air hit my bare arms, left only in the tank top I wore beneath, staring at him blankly as he looked at me through narrowed eyes. 

"Those," he said, pointing to my arms, indicating the scars that ran along them, "You're ashamed of those." 

I blinked. "…Yes," I admitted to him. 

"Why?"   
Why? "Because they're ugly," I said softly, wincing. "Because I can't forget why they're there. Because – " 

"You're still alive," he pointed out curtly. "Why be ashamed of the circumstances? You're still *alive*," he repeated, his voice low and soft and almost a whisper. 

Yes, I was still alive… 

"You're still alive, and *she* died," he whispered. 

I looked up to see that he was staring at the floor, my sweatshirt still grasped in his right hand, eyes as unfocused as his voice. 

"Who?" I pleaded, wanting to know what was tearing him apart, who had done this to him, what had happened – 

"You feel sorry for me?" he snapped, eyes and voice suddenly focused on me as his head whipped up. 

I nearly jumped. "I – I'm sorry for whatever happened to you –" I stammered. 

"I don't need your *pity*," he spat. "I don't need you!" 

"I… I never said you did, Wufei," I told him softly; again he seemed like a scared little child, ready to run if I made the wrong move or if I said the wrong words, told him something he didn't want to hear. It almost made me want to cry, the way he looked and sounded right now. 

I remembered that we were all not even real adults yet, and that we were all, in some way, more or less fighting in a war that we hadn't started, on no one's side, without anyone to back us up. The colonies had given up on their soldiers, abandoned the Gundam pilots to their own devices and cut all connections. I had been dragged with them, more by choice than anything. But I had been abandoned as well, in a way, by the people that had sent me here in the first place, regardless of their – or my – intentions. And I was here now because I believed in their cause, because I still believed that they were fighting for the right reasons.

Because they were fighting for peace. 

And I saw that they were not finding it. 

"I didn't need her, either," Wufei said, snapping me back into the here and now as he stood before me, staring resolutely at me – or through me, I couldn't tell. His voice, still cold and angry, was becoming detached again… 

"Who didn't you need?" I repeated, softly.

"Meiran." He spat the name out, but the look on his face immediately after the word had left his lips told me that he wished he'd said it with a bit more kindness. 

I waited silently for him to go on. 

"Meiran went out to defend the colony on her own, the *baka*, and she died for her stupidity. Because she wouldn't wait for backup. Because she was too damn proud. Because she – " 

He stopped for a second, and I wasn't sure if he was choking on his words or not – 

"Because she wanted to prove that she was strong. She was so stupid," he said, and what I heard behind his voice froze me to the core. 

I could hear the sadness, more clearly than ever, beneath those words. I could hear his tears. 

And for an instant all I wanted to do was to protect him from everything – from whatever had happened, from the pain of this Meiran, whom he had obviously lost, from the colonies and from the war and from – 

From himself. 

From myself.

"You're stupid too," he said suddenly, eyes focused once more on me, voice angry and cold and devoid of what I had just heard. "And you're going to get what's coming to you someday." 

"And you're going to get yourself killed," I replied, not wanting to think about the truth behind his words. 

"So? I don't matter – I'm just a soldier in a war. I exist to die. I don't 'matter'." 

Didn't he *see*?!

"You *do* matter!" I told him, desperate now because suddenly I was afraid that if he left now I wouldn't ever see him alive again. "You matter to *me*, you baka, and I know that only makes you angrier but – 

"But don't go die for something you don't believe in. It's not worth it. There's not much to believe in anymore, and there's even less worth dying for. Don't," I pleaded, "don't throw your life away for something you don't believe in. Please." 

There was a beat of silence before he answered. "Do you know what I don't want to do?" he asked. 

"What?" I whispered.

"I don't want to care anymore," he said, voice calm and level. 


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Not mine, and maybe that's why parts are coming out so *slowly*… ^^;;

AN: I am *really* very sorry I'm so slow, but here's a nice juicy part for any of those dying for it to come out! ^^;; I swear, I've got the rest written, really!

Watching You 

Part 8

There was motion above me – I assumed he was leaving. 

I did not assume that he had crouched down before me, still holding my sweatshirt in his hand. 

"I didn't think you were going to give up that easily," he commented softly. 

"You overestimated me for once," I said flatly, as flat as the flat grey of the floor, ignoring the tone of his voice because I just couldn't listen to it anymore. "But I can't believe you didn't expect to win this, Chang. Well, you won. I give up. I can't do this anymore." 

"Can't do what anymore?"   
"I can't… I can't… care. About any of you – about Duo, or Quatre, or Trowa or Heero. About you." 

A few drops of water rolled down my nose and dripped off onto the floor. 

I hated crying. 

Almost as much as I hated caring. 

He sat down on the floor in front of me. I still didn't look at him. The floor was much easier to talk to, much easier to understand right now.

"Well, that's what I thought," he said softly. "But I also thought you were trying to talk me out of it." 

"Well, I was failing." 

"No, you were winning." 

I looked up. 

"But you gave up. Where's the strength in that?" 

His eyes weren't quite so cold. In fact, they weren't cold at all. 

"I'm *not* strong," I cried, begging him to believe it so he would stop *pushing* me and let me be. "Stop thinking that I am – or that I could be, or whatever, because I'm *not* and you can't make me, if that's what you were ever trying to do."

"Yes, you are." 

"No I'm – "

"You're still alive," he said, voice still soft and calm and I could hear that now and it was scaring me almost as much as it was soothing me. "You went through hell and you're still alive, and that's more than I can say for the last person I resp– "

He paused for the briefest of instants, so brief that you couldn't even fit a heartbeat into it. "That's more than I can say for the last person I cared about. So don't go and give up now, baka." 

He stood up, and I watched his feet walk around me. 

He dropped my sweatshirt onto my head, and I heard his footsteps echo out of the room and down the hall, disappearing into cool, grey silence. 

***

But I still couldn't trust him. There was still something in his eyes, when he'd looked at me and told me not to give up. 

There was something in his eyes that *had* given up. 

And I couldn't let him give up. I *wouldn't* let him give up. I owed him too much – I owed all the pilots too much – to let any one of them give up. 

That, and I loved him too much. Because I knew I did, and there was no going back on that, either. 

And so here I was, sitting hunched over in the back compartment of Shenlong, trying not to slide all over the small space as the suit made its way through the OZ base towards its objective. 

I knew he would kill me if he found me here. Literally – I didn't doubt that Wufei would cause me fatal harm if he knew I was stowing away on *his* Nataku. But I also knew that he wasn't going to look back here unless I slipped up and made a sound, or moved too quickly, or something like that. I was a mechanic, and a good one by now – I knew this suit inside-out, even if I hadn't been allowed to so much as look at it for more than five minutes as of late. 

I remembered the last time I was crammed into the back compartment of a Gundam. That had been Deathscythe, and I had been with Duo… 

There was a violent explosion to the right; it nearly knocked me into the side but I caught myself at the last second. As it was I banged my head and saw spots for half a minute; while I tried to regain my sense of balance, a few more explosions rocked the suit, but these were farther away and not as violent. 

That was one disadvantage to being back here – I couldn't tell what was going on. 

Well… that wasn't entirely true… I reached into my pocket and pulled out the tiny radio that I'd stashed there. It was tuned to the suits' frequencies. I hadn't wanted to listen in. I had wanted to trust Wufei – 

Another explosion rocked the suit, from behind it this time. The suit lurched forward, causing me to bang my head again. 

The suit paused, as if its pilot had paused.

I stopped breathing, praying that he hadn't heard me hit the panel. I lay there, pressed against the deckplates that would slide open if he hit the right button, dumping me into the cockpit… 

The suit moved again, and I risked drawing air into my lungs once more. That had been close. I would have to remember to put seatbelts back here… 

I checked the radio, making sure it was still intact before placing the earpiece in my ear and clicking the channel on. Static and shouting filled my head, the battle suddenly washing over me through the Gundams' radio channel even as it raged on beside me, only about a meter's worth of metal and wiring between me and the blasts outside –

"Chang! What the hell *kkkzt* doing?! *Kkt* wrong *way*!" 

"Turn around! Meet on the other side *kkzz* – " 

Duo's frantic voice, followed by Heero's somewhat calmer but annoyed words. 

Then Wufei's voice. Perfectly calm. 

"There are too many suits here. The numbers were off. I'm going to take them all out at once." 

My heart froze. He was *not* thinking what I thought he was – 

He wouldn't. Hadn't I convinced him – 

This was just a small battle, this was nothing worth – 

"*Kk* -Fei!!! You are *not* – *kkkzzzz*" The channel cut off as Wufei jammed the signal, the close proximity of my radio to his jamming signal blocking my receiver as well. 

I tore the radio out of my ear and threw it across the small space; it clattered against the opposite wall as I turned and jammed in the code that would open the door – 

I tumbled out of the cockpit; there were still blasts going off all over the place and I landed at his feet on the floor plates of the small command space. 

"What the hell – *onna*!" His angry voice rang out over me as I rubbed my temple and sat up, bracing myself between the instrument panel and the pilot's seat. 

His voice was cold and his eyes were angry as he stared at me. I blinked up at him and saw that he had his hand on the self-destruct trigger – 

"No!" I screamed at him, struggling up to my knees. "What the *hell* do you think you're doing?!" 

His eyes narrowed as he looked down at me. His finger didn't move. "What does it look like I'm doing?" he hissed. "I want to know what the hell *you're* doing in here. What were you –" 

"I was trying to make sure you weren't going to do something like *that*," I told him evenly, angrily, glancing at his hand. 

He blinked, his face still angry as another explosion hit us. He made no move to counter the advancing mobile suit troops that I could see on his RADAR; I could also see that Heero and Duo were too far off to do anything. 

"What the hell for?!" he asked. "Who are you to decide whether I –" 

"No one!" I cried, gazing up at him and wishing he would take his hand off that button, knowing it was hopeless. "I'm no one. But who are *you* to…" I trailed off, not knowing what I had meant. Or, if I did know, not knowing if I could say it. 

"You can't stop me," he hissed, voice heavy with fatigue. He was tired of all this. 

Well, I was tired of all this, too. 

"No," I said softly. "No, I can't. I… I don't think I was really planning on it," I admitted, maybe more to myself than to him. 

It was strange. The world had suddenly grown fuzzy and distant. The explosions occasionally rocking the suit were mere tremors to me, the panels' beeping faraway and muffled. Even my mind seemed swathed in a thick blanket of cotton, detached from my actions here and now. But all the same… 

I knew what I had come here to do. And it hadn't really been to stop him. 

"Then what – what are you doing?" he growled, angry and now confused as I stood in the small space of the cockpit. Onyx eyes stared angrily up at me, sharp-edged and demanding. His finger didn't move. 

"And how exactly did you plan on getting *yourself* out of this, onna?" he demanded, still trying to retain his anger through the confusion as he continued staring up at me. 

"I… wasn't," was all I said as I sat on his lap and put my hand over his, my thumb on his thumb on the trigger. 

I looked over at him. He was looking at me with an expression of anger and fear that I probably would have been afraid of, had I been attached to my mind at the moment. But I wasn't.

All I knew was that this was what I had to do right now. 

I locked my eyes on his and told him what I knew I had to tell him. What I had really been thinking when I'd stowed away in the back compartment of his Gundam. Why I was really here. 

"If you really want to die, then just tell me. But if you want to go then I'm going too, because I'm not going to live without you." 

He stared at me, and the only things I could hear were the faraway sounds of explosions and RADAR alarms. The only thing I could feel was my hand, too-small over his, and the trigger beneath our fingers. 

"What do you want to do?" 

_*What do you want to do?*_ she asked. _*You're not the one that's dead. Yet.*_

"…Meiran…" he whispered. 

I watched him. I watched him as he shut his eyes, squeezed them shut before me and his face suddenly showed nothing but pain. 

My hand didn't move. 

My heart didn't move. 

Until his hand moved; turned over so that it dropped the trigger, let it clatter to the floor and grasped mine instead, fingers interlocking with mine and gripping me like a lifeline. 

"You are such a *baka*, you damn onna," he said, and at that moment the cotton around my mind froze and shattered and fell away and I heard the tears in his voice. 

He opened his eyes, too-bright and still that deep, dark onyx that I would drown in if I wasn't careful

"I know," I told him softly. "It's what I'm best at." I tried to smile. 

"That," he said, voice firm and words decisive, "is more true than you'll ever know." 

And then there were no more words either of us could say. 

Until Duo's radio signal broke through Wufei's jamming frequency. 

"-Fei!!! What are you *doing*?!! Why the hell're you just standing there – you'd better be freakin' glad I got here in time to cover your butt or you'd *so* be toast right now, buddy!"

Wufei broke away to lean forward and hit the "call" button. 

"If you don't mind, Maxwell, I am a little busy at the moment. Shut up." 

And he hit the jamming frequency again.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: Wufei: "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, baka onna! I don't belong to you!" 

Watching You

Part 9

The cockpit panel slid aside clumsily, stalling a few times as it opened. I frowned, looking over at Wufei. 

"You took a few hits to the front," I told him. "They must have warped the plating. Do you know how long that's gonna take to fix?" 

He looked at me for a moment, dark eyes studying me intently. "So?" he finally asked. "That's your job, isn't it?" 

"Hai, hai," I said, waving a hand at him. "But you," I commanded, pointing a finger at him, "are going to help me." 

He smiled, a sly, almost feral grin. "Oh, I intend to." 

"*Hey!!*" 

There was an annoyed shout from below us, most likely emanating from the rather miffed-looking Duo Maxwell on the hangar floor, hands on hips and staring up at the cockpit. "Just what the hell do you think you were pullin' back there, Cha–" His eyes narrowed as I peered over the edge of the panel from my position on Wufei's lap. I had turned, draping my legs over one of the arms of the seat, resting sideways against his chest while he'd piloted the damaged suit home. I could've very well sat on the floor on the way back, but –

But somehow I hadn't really wanted to. 

And he hadn't said anything about it. 

"Uh… pardon me if this sounds rude," Duo's voice rang out, cutting through my thoughts, "but can I ask just WHAT THE HELL is KOJI DOING IN THERE?!"

I winced, but Wufei made no move or indication that Duo's voice had bothered him. 

"Just now," Wufei said, voice reverberating throughout his chest as he shouted down to Duo, albeit amazingly calmly, "she was telling me how long it was going to take to fix this panel." 

Duo's eyes narrowed. "That's not what I meant." 

"I know." 

Duo tapped his foot impatiently, the dull sound ringing throughout the bay. 

"She could have climbed up here once I landed," Wufei pointed out calmly. 

"Well, that's true," Duo's singsong voice rang out, "but that wouldn't explain why she's SITTING ON YOUR LAP!!!"

"Duo?" 

I craned my neck to see Quatre coming over, obviously confused by all the American's shouting. 

"Just look!" Duo exclaimed, pointing an incriminating finger up at us. "Look at what's goin' on up there in Shenlong – ooh!" His eyes suddenly widened and he clapped his hand over his mouth. 

Quatre was peering up at us, still confused. "Koji? How did you…?" 

"You were there the whole time! OhmiGod… don't tell me the solitary dragon's getting soft… "

"Shut up, Maxwell," Wufei snapped, but at the same time gently lifting his arms, indicating that he wanted to get up. I slid off his lap and a second later he'd grabbed me firmly around the waist – much to my surprise – and wrapped his other hand around the cable that would lower us to the ground. 

"It's true! It's true!" Duo started shouting as Wufei hopped off the footloop and landed deftly on the ground, releasing his hold on my waist. "*I* know why you were just sitting there in the middle of the battle – it's 'cause you were too busy makin' out to –"

"DUO!" I shouted; he stopped and looked at me, blinking. "Duo, you know that's not what happened." 

He suddenly grinned and pointed. "Then why are you blushing?!" 

Damn it, stupid bodily functions that I couldn't control – but we hadn't – 

"Look," I pleaded; I could feel Wufei's cool gaze on me, curious as to what I was going to tell Duo, "Yes, I distracted him. But I was only trying to get him to not kill himself. And that's *all*, got it Maxwell?" I crossed my arms and tried to look firm. 

Duo's grin hadn't faded. "Sure, sure, that's why Feifei-chan here was letting you sit on his lap, sure…" 

"Duo!!!" 

There was a hand on my shoulder; I turned to look at Wufei, my gaze locking onto his. 

"Just let him think whatever the hell he wants to think," Wufei said softly. "None of it is true, anyway." And he led me out of there. 

***

"You look tired," he observed, sitting on the bed before me. 

I sighed. "I *feel* tired," I agreed. 

"Then why don't you get some sleep?" he asked. And he peeled off his shirt, tossing it to the side. 

I stood there, gaping at him. 

Well, I had seen him without a shirt before – when he was injured. But… but… 

"What?" he asked softly. 

I shook my head. "Nothing." 

"No," he said firmly, standing up and coming over to me, "Something is bothering you. What is it?"

All right. Fine. I would ask. 

"Wufei?" I asked softly, looking down at the floor, not really wanting to look at him. 

"What is it?" he asked. 

"Who's… who *was* Meiran?" 

There was a pause. A very heavy, painful pause during which I was very sure that I should not have asked that question. 

"She was my wife." 

My head snapped up as I stared at him, my stomach dropping and my world falling apart. His… *wife*?!

"We were married at 14," he continued, voice calm and even, but his eyes were looking past me even as he stood only a foot away. "It was an arranged marriage – part of the tradition of our clans. She was very stubborn, very insistent on being the strongest there was. And she believed very much in her 'Justice'." Something in his voice echoed the immense respect he must have had for her. 

The respect that I threatened to take away from him. 

I couldn't dare – 

His eyes finally focused themselves, cool onyx falling on me once more. "But less than a year later she insisted on going out on her own when OZ attacked my colony. She insisted that she was strong enough to beat them all." 

He paused. "She wasn't." 

I blinked as he stopped speaking; my legs felt as if they were about to give out and send me tumbling to the floor. He'd been married… he'd had a wife…? And she had died and left him here and… 

"I… I can't – I can't do this, then," I told him softly. His eyes narrowed in confusion. 

"What?" 

"I can't… Wufei, I can't possibly try to take the place of someone like that. I don't have the right!" I cried, feeling my hands ball up into fists, hearing the tears threatening from beneath my voice. 

"What do you mean, it's not your right?" he demanded, taking another step towards me, as if he could get much closer. "She is gone, Koji. Even I know that. Nothing will bring her back." 

He stopped again, sighed. "Not even my fighting in this damned war." 

So *that* was why he was here. It was suddenly so clear; his justice, his strength, his *Nataku*… He had been fighting, all this time – 

He had been fighting for *her*.

The tears finally did spill over. "Oh, God, Wufei… I'm sorry," I told him. "I'm so sorry – "

"Don't be sorry," he said, his voice so heavy that I pulled my gaze back up to meet his. "You should never be sorry for something that's not your fault."

I shook my head. "I'm sorry it had to happen to you – I wish you hadn't had to go through –" 

"You can't protect me from the past," he said softly, snapping my mind and suddenly I realized – 

That's what I had been trying to do. That's all I had *ever* wanted to do, was to protect this boy from the hell that he had been through, try to keep these things from happening to someone that didn't deserve them. 

And I was too weak to do even that.

"I know," I admitted softly. I sighed. "I just… I just… I don't want to hurt you any more." I told him softly. "If it's just going to make things worse by –"   
"No," he said firmly, cutting me off, and he took another step forward and suddenly his arms had looped around me, pulling me to his warm chest, and I couldn't think, I was still so confused – 

"No, you're not going to make things worse," he told me over the loud heartbeat throbbing beside my ear. "You've had enough in your life – " 

"So have you," I pointed out. 

He sighed. "Yes. I suppose I have." He released me, taking a step back and looking down at me. "This isn't the past. You can't protect me from what's already happened. But you were willing to save me today," he said softly. "The least I can do is be strong enough to let you do that."

There was silence for a long time. 

But there was still something bothering me. "I don't want to take something that's not mine," I said softly, aware of how stupid that sounded, but it was what was bothering me nonetheless.

I couldn't steal him from her memory, not like this. 

He looked down at me. "Koji," he said softly, "I don't belong to Meiran."


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: Gundam's not mine, and neither are the lyrics at the bottom. They're Yoko Kanno's. ^^;; 

Watching You

Part 10

The night was dark; I could see through the open window that there was no moon, but the stars twinkled down through the black velvet of the winter sky to fall on the white earth below. I was warm, tucked between the blankets and the arms of the boy who slept beside me. 

I was happy, too. For the first time in a so long, I was happy. I couldn't really explain why, since being happy involved being next to the only person who could rile me up enough to punch them, the only person who had hurt me more by ignoring me than by yelling at me. The only person that I had been so willing to risk my life to save.

My mind kept replaying multiple scenes at once, but the one that stuck out the most was that of a few hours ago. 

"Now. Do you want to get some sleep?" 

"Okay," I whispered, turning and heading for the door. 

I was almost there when I thought I heard him say something. 

"You can stay, if you want." 

I stopped short, trying to determine if the words that had just been spoken were real. Or if I had just imagined them.

I turned, and he was sitting on the bed looking at me with that calm, unreadable gaze. 

I took a chance. "Can I… can I stay?" 

He nodded. "Hai. Of course, Koji." 

And it registered that out of the past three times he had called me by name, it had been just that – he had called me by *name*. Not "onna," but "Koji." 

I had practically fallen into the bed, I was really that tired, and had curled up beneath the blankets when I felt him slide down next to me. He was warm, and I found myself huddled beside him and suddenly his arms were around me. 

"Goodnight," he yawned simply, and something behind his voice was happy.

I smiled. "Goodnight." 

I blinked in the darkness, amazingly not very tired even though I couldn't have slept more than 3 hours at most. I carefully slid out of the bed, trying my hardest not to wake the sleeping form still there. I padded over to the window to gaze out over the snow and stars and sky. 

After a moment I turned to look at the bed. Wufei was sprawled across it, wrapped in the blankets and still sleeping peacefully. He really did look peaceful now. I didn't know if I had much to do with it, but I was glad nonetheless. I would've given anything to see him look like this – to be free of all that pain that he kept pent up inside. To be innocent the way he was meant to be, and to have hands free of bloodstains and oaths. 

I hoped he would look like this for a long time to come. 

Words floated back into my mind. I couldn't help but sing, softly, remembering the last time I had sung them, and the way he had looked so peaceful then, too. 

"Win dain a lotica, en val tu ri si lo ta. Fin dein a loluca, en dragu a sei lain. Vi fa-ru les shutai am, en riga-lint."

"Win chent a lotica, en val tu ri si lo ta. Fin dein a loluca, si katigura neuver. Floreria for chesti, si entina." 

__

"You were the first dragon, my beloved. I've been watching you, from atop the fairy stump. How beautifully did the water touch those lips. How you shone at the spearhead of battle."

*

__

You were the first dragon, my beloved. I've been watching you, from atop the fairy stump. How beautifully did the water touch those lips. How you shone at the spearhead of battle. 

Because you flew away, the sky is unseen to me. Let's just sell this spinning-wheel, so everything will be illusion. 

My beloved, you were the first dragon


	11. Epilogue

Disclaimer: Still not mine… 

AN: This is it! I think… Unless anyone has any more crazy ideas… which are welcome!

Watching You

Epilogue

"Duo… I… I'm sorry," I said softly, concentrating on the piece of wiring before me. 

"Nani?" he asked; I saw his black-booted feet come over and stop before me, saw him crouch down and look up at me with those big blue eyes, slight concern dancing in his gaze. 

"Sorry for what?" he asked. 

I dropped my hands into my lap, finally looked up at him. 

"Sorry for… for betraying you like this. For… for…" I sighed. "For going and falling for someone like Chang Wufei while you were sitting here trying your hardest to – " 

"Hey!" he said, cutting me off, but his voice was far from harsh. "Hey, don't go saying that. We all make mistakes," he said softly, "but you know what? *That's* not one of them." 

He was smiling, and despite the fear, the terrible feeling of betrayal and pain in my stomach, that smile still made me feel better. 

"But –" 

"No," he said, shaking his head, the tip of his braid sweeping back and forth across the floor as he did so. "Don't apologize when you've done nothing wrong. We were over a long time ago, and I was just too stubborn to see it." 

"But I didn't have to go and –" 

"Hey," he said, cutting me off again, "do you *know* how long it's been since I've seen the Wu-man crack a smile?" He paused. "Come to think of it, I don't think I ever *did* see him smile up 'till now." 

I looked down again. This was so stupid. Wasn't it…? 

"You mean a lot to him," Duo said softly; I looked back up at him, confused at the seriousness of his words, of the weight of what he was saying. "I don't know if he ever tells you that, but even a baka like me can tell. And if he *doesn't* tell you that, then have him come and talk to *me*." Duo grinned, and I caught myself smiling, just a little, at what he was doing. What he was finally giving up, how he was setting me free somehow. 

"Besides," he said, waving his hand, looking off to the side, "I've got my sights on someone new. And *this* should be a real challenge, even for the Great Shinigami!" 

I felt my eyes narrow. "What? Who?"

He grinned, and leaned over, whispering a name in my ear. 

My eyes widened as he pulled back. "Ne? Whaddaya think? How long's it gonna take?"

I suddenly burst out laughing, shaking my head. "Oh boy… until hell freezes over, Maxwell… but hey, I know you've got some strings you can pull." 

He grinned, and leaned in, giving me a quick hug that I hadn't expected in the least. But nonetheless found myself returning. 

"You're a different person," he said, letting go and standing up. "And I think I might just like this one better. Thanks for the parts!" he grinned, holding up the handful of miscellaneous resistors I'd dug up for him. "Ja!" 

And he bounced back off toward Deathscythe, juggling the parts as he went, making sure to toss one at Heero before innocently walking on as if nothing had happened. 

I smiled, and shook my head. 

When hell froze over. 

But who knew?


End file.
